Book 5 is in the bag…

Well, sort of. This one’s actually a novella, and it will come out on the 15th. It’s available for preorder at Amazon and Other Bookstores:

The planned trajectory for this series is to follow this fall’s debuts with 3 more novellas and hopefully one more novel by next year this time.

(These are all tentative covers save for the Isla cover, which is already out there! )

And a bit of a warning for anyone who likes to buy physical books: I do intend to make a ‘collection’ of the four novellas eventually, although not until they’re all out.

I do not yet have a title or cover for Novel 5, but I have already started working on it… (wish me luck!)

Books 3 and 4 are now available for Preorder!

Mary Quirk and the Reborn Realm by Anna St. Vincent

Coming November 15 to

Amazon Others

A summer in isolation in Umbrum Hall has all of Mary’s class frustrated. The students and instructors are trying to make the best of it, but it’s not easy restraining hundreds of magically trained Potentials and Cadets.

Mary Quirk still hasn’t gotten over seeing a world destroyed when Umbrum’s fellow school of El Paso Cerrado collapsed, Now months later, some of the Paso students are returning to see if anything has survived. Mary would love to go herself, but it’s not her school, and therefore, not her business.

Until something goes wrong, and then it’s left to others to fix it. Mary and her class come up with a risky plan, but saving the others means putting their own futures on the line. Are Mary and her friends ready to take that leap into the unknown?

Mary Quirk and the Language of Curses by Anna St. Vincent

Coming November 24 to

Amazon Others

Mary Quirk has some unfinished business.

Earlier that summer, Mary and her friends managed to rescue three cadets from their rival school, El Paso Cerrado. As part of that effort, Mary turned up a strange fact that her boyfriend Finn and his twin Dillon are both hiding: their human grandfather was a Maledictor.

Maledictors make curses. It’s an old and feared talent that isn’t well understood. And Dillon clearly has more than a touch of it.

Unfortunately, that’s become Mary’s problem. She’s tied to Dillon via a necklace he lent her, one that lets her become unseen. Unfortunately, she’s beginning to suspect that the spell Dillon bound into the pendant isn’t a spell at all, but a curse. Now Dillon is appearing in her nightmares, and she really wants to get him out.


And to do that, she’ll have to face down an ancient curse…

And coming in December:

Isla Rivera and the Broken Cradle by Anna St. Vincent

They’re coming!

Finally! I’ve gotten all my ducks in a row, and books 3-5 of the magic school series (Dark Lessons) are on their way. ;o)

First, if you’re interested in starting with Book 1, Mary Quirk and the Secret of Umbrum Hall, it’s now in the Kindle Unlimited program.

I’ll be putting Book 2 on sale soon, preparing for the debut of Book 3 on November 15th. Book 4 will debut closer to the end of November (the 25th, if I can swing that), and Book 5 will come out in early December.

The Isla Rivera book will be a novella, so a bit shorter, and I hope to get those other three novellas out in spring. ::fingers crossed::

Coming this fall… ish

I’ve made a lot of progress on the upcoming books:

Dark Lessons: Book Three is now titled Mary Quirk and the Reborn Realm.

This one is complete, although yet to be scheduled for publication (waiting on the final draft of Book Four (Mary Quirk and the Language of Curses) before moving ahead. I hope to publish these two in Late September and October, with Isla Rivera and the Broken Cradle coming out in November.

Of course, life keeps getting in the way of my schedules, so I can’t make any firm promises. But keep your fingers crossed for me.

(The two following novellas are now scheduled for spring of 2023.)

For 2022…

Well, it’s always nice to have plans. I do have a plan for this year, but I’m running behind, so I’ve got to scramble! I hope to have 4 new books out this year, all in the late summer/fall. (In Oklahoma, that’s later than you think.)

The covers still need some work, but I’m hoping that all of these will be finalized and out by New Year’s: 2 new novels, and 1 novella!

So just to keep up to date, I do have plans. Here’s hoping I can actually see them through.

What’s coming next year….

This year has sped by, and I’m already looking forward to next year, and although I have fond hopes of getting 3 books out next year, I can probably only promise 2.

Obviously, I’m working on Mary Quirk and the Endless Summer, and that’s about 1/3 of the way completed at this point. I hope to have it finished by late spring, and get it out next summer.

In addition, I’ve got a novella in the works although I’m not sure when it will surface. This will be Isla Rivera and the Broken Cradle. (This is not the final cover below, but I like to have a temporary one so I know what to look forward to!)

Because this one is set at Christmas time, it may come out later in the year, when I’m hoping (fingers crossed!) to have Book 4 ready as well.

Mary Quirk and the Endless Summer

Just to show that I’m moving ahead, Book 3 is in progress, and I’m including an excerpt, the very first scene:

Chapter 1

Jason’s sitting across the table from me in the dormitory’s kitchen, his eyes fixed on a sheet of paper covered in arcane notes. I say ‘arcane’ here not because Jason and I are at a school for magic. The word arcane actually means something not a lot of people know. Not a secret so much as … hard to learn. And to me, this is. It’s a complete mystery.

That’s not a spell written on that paper. Nope, our Chemistry instructor has us making pie.

Instructor Emden has, in light of our lackluster performance on our Chemistry final in the spring, given us the weirdest chemistry make-up work ever. Jason and I must learn to bake.

Jason Brown and I have worked together a lot over the last two years. I tutored him in math first year, but it wasn’t until the second year here at Umbrum Hall that we became friends. I’m dating his roommate—the ever-adorable Finn Mitchell—and Jason’s not-dating mine, Isla Rivera, super-student. Neither of those two is doing chemistry makeup work because they both aced the final. Lucky them.

I’m letting Jason lead on this chore because he actually has more cooking experience than I do. He’s got four younger sisters and brothers, so he was always helping his mom around the house. Jason knows how to whip up a dinner for little kids, clean the living room, or even mop floors. He’s made birthday cakes before, and so have I, but that’s by following instructions on the back of a cake mix box and opening up a tub of frosting.

We’re supposed to do this from scratch.

At least Jason and I aren’t like Bianca, Emma, and Anh. Their group assignment was to grow beans. Twenty different kinds of beans, all in the same plot. I’d rather eat pie any day.

Jason has set out a bunch of canisters, a big lump of butter wrapped in wax paper, and a small, stoppered glass vial full of clear liquid. His brown hair is flopping over his eyes at the moment, and his mouth is twisted to one side. He’s a good-looking guy, but he’ll always just be a study-buddy to me. He hands the paper over to me and says, “Okay, first we make sure we’ve got the right tools, then we weigh everything out.”  

I glance down at the notes, and yep, Emden’s recipe is written with weights instead of normal-human measurements like cups and tablespoons. I hold in a sigh, but then notice one of the ingredients.  “Does this say vodka?”

Jason holds up the small vial. “Only enough for one crust, so don’t get any ideas.”

It’s time for another dry look. Jason’s pretty much immune to my occasional sarcasm by now, though. “Okay. So the butter is chilled, ingredients are out. What’s a pastry cutter?”

He lifts a bizarre, semi-circular tool I now recall I’ve seen in my mom’s kitchen but have never observed in action. Huh. So that’s what that was

“Are you allowed to ask for advice?” a voice asks from the doorway, a faint Spanish accent making the words come clipped and fast.

Jason and I are both from Central Oklahoma, so we sound normal to each other. Tash Lopez claims that we drawl, which I absolutely do not do. And if I do, I’m getting rid of it. Ugh … drawl.

Tash is standing in the kitchen doorway, tall and lean like most people who are part elf. Her black cowboy boots add an extra couple of inches of height, so she’s inches taller than me and almost exactly the same as Jason. Her gray hair is currently pulled into a number of braids that are artfully twisted back, so she’s probably been hanging out with Bianca or Beyza this morning. Although it’s actually summer, this school is never hot, so she’s wearing one of her cropped suede jackets today—today it’s the demin-blue one with the foot-long fringe coming off the sleeves.

I secretly lust over those fringed jackets of hers, although I honestly can’t imagine myself wearing one. I don’t do western wear.

“You can’t help us,” Jason tells her. “But thanks, though.”

“I wasn’t offering to help,” Tash says. “I’m not getting flour on this outfit. I’m offering advice.”

Jason and I look at each other. He shrugs. “She didn’t say no advice. Just no help.”

“Then put the butter back into the fridge until you’re ready to use it,” Tash says, one long finger indicating the appliance in question. “If your butter gets too warm while you’re working it, it will start releasing its water into the flour and that will make your dough tough. You want it to hold onto its water until it’s in the oven so you get flakes.”

Jason’s brows crinkle together. “Why?”

Tash lets out a dramatic sigh. “Newbies. Because if the water releases during baking, it turns into steam. That what lifts the crust, what makes it flaky, instead of a gummy mess.”

“So this is about water?” he asks. “Damn. I should have figured that out. I wonder…”

Jason’s a water elemental, and that alone should tell you why he now wants to mess around with the recipe. Or the baking. But this is an assignment, and I don’t want to risk screwing it up. “No,” I tell him. “We follow the instructions this time. We can do an experiment later, if you want to try some other way.”

Jason’s mouth tugs to one side as he considers that. I think I’ve somehow committed myself to baking multiple pies with him now, but given that we’re stuck here all summer, it’ll be something to do.

“Okay, so this first one,” he agrees, “we’ll just do it Emden’s way.” He takes the butter and sticks it back in the fridge, then turns back to Tash. “Any other advice?”

Her shoulders lift. “You could put the knife, the cutting board, and the pastry cutter in the freezer while you’re getting ready. My abuela always does that. Also, the bowl you’re about to use to mix everything.”

Jason takes her up on that suggestion.

Since she lived with her grandparents a  lot growing up, they’re more like her parents, I think. When she talks about her grandparents, her accent gets heavier. They live in a suburb of El Paso really close to the border, so there are a lot of Spanish-speakers there. “Did she teach you to bake stuff?”

Tash’s head tilts to one side. She crosses her arms over her chest, revealing the motherlode of pricey silver jewelry she’s wearing today, mostly bangles and rings. Me, I’m pretty basic. I have one necklace, the blue-stone one I’m wearing now under my T-shirt. My ears aren’t even pierced. “Did your mom not?” Tash asks.

I cringe a little. I don’t want to criticize my mom, who’s mostly a great mother. But cooking is not one of her strong points. “Um. I never really wanted to learn.”

Tash shrugs. She lives next door to me, and I’ve been helping her catch up in Calculus, so we’ve had plenty of time to exchange mom stories. Believe me, hers are pretty sad.  Her mom is a nightmare. Probably why Tash is the most cynical sixteen-year-old I’ve ever met. Seriously, she makes me look friendly and trusting.

“Well,” Tash adds, “the point is you have to keep the butter as cold as possible while putting stuff together. You can even freeze the butter and grate it to make it go faster, but it’s too late for that today, isn’t it? When is this pie due?”

That’s a question I really never thought I’d hear someone ask at Umbrum Hall. When is your pie due?

“We’re supposed to deliver it to the instructors’ dining hall by five,” Jason says.

Tash shakes her head. “What kind of filling?”

“Buttermilk,” Jason says, but it sounds more like a question.

“Yeah,” Tash says, “you guys had better hustle if that’s going to cool completely before five.”  She strides over to the refrigerator and retrieves a reusable bottle of water with her name written in sharpie on the side. “Gotta head back to work on Language class,” she says, and is gone without anything more helpful hints.

One of the many weird things about this year is our being stuck here in Umbrum over the summer. We had a choice; either stay at the school or go home. But the go home option is a semi-permanent one because there’s a pandemic on out there. For now, Umbrum is in lockdown; if you leave, you can’t come back. No one knows how long that will last. We may be here for the rest of the year. Or… we may get to go home in a couple of months.

Umbrum is a pocket world of sorts, though, so bringing in a virus could overwhelm the school’s tiny infirmary. We can handle a cold outbreak or a flu, but not anything more virulent. Unfortunately, that’s a word we’ve heard too often this year. 

So the professors and instructors are doing their best to challenge us. And thus, pie.

More pie for me.

__________________________________

You knew this would happen, sooner or later…

Yep, even though I haven’t published Book 2 yet, I’ve also started working on Book 3. Just a little bit. (The cover below is preliminary, as is the title. This may end up being …and the Door into Summer.)

Book 2 is still in the editing process, and there has to be another pass, plus it will go out to a beta reader or three before the final round is done. So we’re definitely looking at an April date for this book, although I haven’t set the date yet.

But as soon as I have it ready, I’ll let people know. My alter ego has a book coming out prior to this one, so that one gets all the love first!

Mary Quirk and the Twilight of Paso Cerrado

Just dropping in to update the blog regarding the second book:

MQ2 has just gone through the second edit pass, and will have one more of those next month. Then it’s off to the beta readers to check the little niggling bits. In the meantime, my alter-ego will be working on a different book, so we’ll be staying busy.

I hope to have this book out in late March or April, but the timing will depend on the speed of edits, as always.

There’s a third book already in the work, likely titled Mary Quirk and the Endless Summer.